Song:Family Affair
Album:Reflections (A Retrospective)
Mary J. Blige is the most successful female R&B artist in recent memory. She has been successful since the early 90s. The 2001 single Family Affair is her only number one pop hit. She was born Jan. 11, 1971 in New York City. She grew up in Georgia and sang in the church choir. Her mother moved Mary and her sister back to New York. She dropped out of high school in her junior year. A recording done in a mall booth wound up in the hands of Uptown Records owner Andre Harrell. He signed Mary and she sang backup while he figured out what to do with her. Harrell put her together with Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs. As famous as Combs is now, the 1992 Mary J. Blige album What's The 411? was the first album he ever produced. The single Real Love reached #7 on the Billboard Hot 100. The album was certified 3XPlatinum. Her 1994 album My Life did just as well. But her next hit single was Not Gon' Cry from the soundtrack of the 1996 film Waiting To Exhale. Then Uptown was sold to MCA. Mary also split up with Combs and she worked with several producers on her 1997 CD Share My World. This album did well but there were no hit singles. Her 1999 album Mary had a softer sound and it didn't do as well as previous albums. So for the 2001 album No More Drama, she decided to get back to a hip hop sound. And the debut single Family Affair was a good example. Mary wrote the song with her brother Bruce Miller. Dr. Dre produced and polished the song with regular collaborator Mike Elizondo. It is to date Mary's only number one pop hit. And No More Drama sold five million copies worldwide. The 2005 album The Breakthrough was an even bigger seller and the single Be Without You reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100. Since then she has faded and she left Universal for Capitol in 2014. This is the only Mary J. Blige comp CD released so far. I thought there would be a bunch of comp CDs but there aren't. Mary has gotten into acting and had success with the 2017 film Mudbound. She got critical praise and several award nominations. And she performed on the Oscars broadcast. She is currently in Toronto filming a TV series based on the comic book The Umbrella Academy for Universal and Netflix to debut in 2019. After divorcing her husband Kendu Isaacs, she released her latest album Strength of a Woman last year. So Mary J. Blige is still singing but she may transition to acting sooner rather than later. Here's the video for Family Affair by Mary J. Blige.
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